Delft University of Technology Simulating the interactions between the water and the socio-economic system in a stressed endorheic basin Enteshari, Sajad; Safavi, Hamid R.; van der Zaag, Pieter DOI 10.1080/02626667.2020.1802027 Publication date 2020 Document Version Final published version Published in Hydrological Sciences Journal Citation (APA) Enteshari, S., Safavi, H. R., & van der Zaag, P. (2020). Simulating the interactions between the water and the socio-economic system in a stressed endorheic basin. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 65(13), 2159- 2174. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1802027 Important note To cite this publication, please use the final published version (if applicable). Please check the document version above. 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Safavi & Pieter van der Zaag (2020) Simulating the interactions between the water and the socio-economic system in a stressed endorheic basin, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 65:13, 2159-2174, DOI: 10.1080/02626667.2020.1802027 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1802027 © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa View supplementary material UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 18 Aug 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 242 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=thsj20 HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL 2020, VOL. 65, NO. 13, 2159–2174 https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1802027 SPECIAL ISSUE: ADVANCING SOCIO-HYDROLOGY Simulating the interactions between the water and the socio-economic system in a stressed endorheic basin Sajad Enteshari a, Hamid R. Safavia and Pieter van der Zaag b,c aDepartment of Civil Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran; bDepartment of Land and Water Management, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands; cDepartment of Water Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY The endorheic basin of Zayandehrud in Iran suffers from environmental problems, social tensions, and Received 11 January 2020 economic instability. Lack of understanding how the water system and the socio-economic system Accepted 11 June 2020 interact may explain these challenges. A system dynamics model, being a holistic simulation tool, was EDITOR developed for the Zayandehrud basin and used to evaluate several policy scenarios. The indices of S. Archfield employment, gross regional product, the volume of groundwater and surface water stored, flow into the basin’s end lake, and the water flow in the river were used to evaluate the scenarios. The findings GUEST EDITOR demonstrate that focusing on supply-based activities or water demand management cannot solely S. Pande improve the condition of the Zayandehrud basin. It is required to reconsider the development policies KEYWORDS of the region in a broader context. Reducing the irrigated area by 15% and developing new industries up Zayandehrud; Iran; socio- to a certain limit may make the combined water and socio-economic system sustainable. hydrology; IWRM; scenario analysis 1 Introduction between systems (Winz et al. 2008, Mirchi et al. 2012, Kotir et al. 2017, Zomorodian et al. 2018). System dynamics models Water management is not an easy task owing to numerous aid to perceive cause and effect relationships between different consumers, diversity of consumption, the conflict between factors of system and feedbacks and subsequently understand stakeholders, and water scarcity, specifically in large-scale sys­ what had been the stimulus of the outputs (Walters and tems (Sandoval-Solis and McKinney 2014). Moreover, there is Javernick-will 2015). In recent years, system dynamics models an interaction between the water resources system and the have been used for water resources modelling in various sub­ socio-economic system, which makes water management jects. For example, participatory water resources modelling more complex (Sivapalan et al. 2012, Montanari 2015, (Butler and Adamowski 2015, Kotir et al. 2017), global water Ogilvie et al. 2019). The interaction between these two systems resources and climate change (Davies and Simonovic 2011), is reciprocal. On the one hand, the decisions made by man­ the interaction between human settlement and flooding (Di agers of water resources could produce both welfare or diffi­ Baldassarre et al. 2013), socio-economic sensitivity and collec­ culty for society and even lead the society towards social tive response to hydrology system (Elshafei et al. 2014), the tensions and movements (Walker et al. 2015). On the other interaction between the water resource and the agricultural hand, economic and social policies influence water consump­ production sector (Kotir et al. 2016), and integrated assess­ tion (Grigg 2016). The lack of heed to these complexities and ment of water security system (Su et al. 2019). the interaction between the water resources system and socio- In order to take account of the interaction between the economic systems could result in the failure of water manage­ water system and the socio-economic system in decisions, ment (Walters and Javernick-will 2015). a system dynamics model can be developed as a predictive Therefore, successful water management needs both under­ tool so that it can be utilized for evaluating scenarios. The standing the interactions between socio-economic and water evaluation of scenarios assists the decision-makers to recog­ resources systems and taking account of this interaction in nize the effects of different decisions and policies on a system decision-making. To understand this interaction, it is essential (Safavi et al. 2016). However, the criteria for the evaluation of to utilize holistic and integrated models that cover both sys­ scenarios should be determined before evaluating them. tems and the connections between them (Mirchi et al. 2012). The criteria, which have been used for evaluating policy Since the processes of water resources systems are not linear, scenarios of water resources management in previous studies, and there are intensifying feedbacks, these models should are diverse. Kotir et al. (2016) have used the amount of water consider the dynamics mode of the systems (Madani and consumption in agricultural, industrial, and domestic sectors, Mariño 2009, Mirchi et al. 2012). System dynamics is one of population, net income of agriculture sector, and the amount the modelling tools that can present a holistic and dynamic of agricultural production for the evaluation of scenarios. comprehension of the system and consider the interaction Chao et al. (2017) used the variables of water demand, CONTACT Pieter van der Zaag [email protected] Department of Land and Water Management, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. 2160 S. ENTESHARI ET AL. agricultural water demand, water shortage, the ratio of surface socio-economic and water systems. These interactions are water to groundwater resources for choosing the scenarios. around the growth of industry and agriculture, employment, Bastan et al. (2018) assessed the scenarios by surveying the gross regional domestic product (GRP), population, water variables of water storage changes, areas of agricultural land, uses, and water resources. The simulated model is then used and areas of changed land-use. Su et al. (2019) chose factors of to evaluate several policy scenarios. In order to evaluate the gap between water resources and consumption, water scenarios, several indices have been used, which cover social, security, amount of sewage, water contamination, water economic, and environmental aspects. The main take-home damage, population, and gross domestic product (GDP) as message of this study is broadening our perspectives beyond criteria for evaluation of scenarios. managing the water supply and demand and to also consider The Zayandehrud River basin is one of the most important socio-economic development trajectories. basins of Iran which has faced several troubles in recent dec­